Blasts the target with energy, dealing X Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of all Arcane spells is increased by 15% and mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 175%. Effect stacks up to 4 times and lasts 6 sec or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.

Blasts the target with energy, dealing X Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of all Arcane spells is increased by 15% and mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 175%. Effect stacks up to 4 times and lasts 6 sec or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.

Arcane Blast is a mage spell that deals direct arcane damage, with increasing damage levels and mana costs when cast in succession. With careful management, the mage can use this spell to trade off damage per mana versus damage per second.

Contents

Rank table

Rank

Damage

Level

Cost

1

842 - 978

64

6 30

2

897 - 1041

71

15

3

1017 - 1215

76

15

4

1185 - 1377

80

15

Each cast will apply a debuff "Arcane Blast" to the mage that increases damage done by arcane spells but increases Arcane Blast's mana cost. This debuff will stack up to four times, and lasts 6 seconds. The values are listed below:

# of Buffs

Reported in Buff Tooltip

Reported in Spell Tooltip

Damage done

Mana Cost Increase

Mana Cost

0

-

-

7% of base mana

1

Base damage + 15%

Base cost + 175%

19% of base mana

2

Base damage + 30%

Base cost + 350%

32% of base mana

3

Base damage + 45%

Base cost + 525%

44% of base mana

4

Base damage + 60%

Base cost + 700%

56% of base mana

When the effect is active, the next arcane damage spell you cast will have its damage increased and consume the effect, making Arcane Blast a useful way to power up your spells.

Cataclysm table

Level

Damage

80

1888

Notes

This spell is available at level 64 (and therefore, only available to players with the Burning Crusade expansion).

The 3-second debuff duration is meant to make the spell interesting in a rotation along with Arcane Barrage. If both are rotated, the Arcane Mage can achieve high DPS while not having to deal with the debuff, as there won't be time to refresh it between Arcane Barrage-Arcane Blast cycles.

It had been reported that mana increasing modifiers such as arcane power or 2/5 mage T5 set bonus add to the % listed in the table above rather than multiply the mana cost listed in the last column, meaning they get more "relatively effective" as you stack the AB debuff higher. The practical result means that if you're going to spam AB with 3 debuffs stacked for some parts of the fight due to excessive mana supply, it's best to do it during arcane power uptime, as the relative increase in mana cost is, at that time, lower than the relative damage increase, compared to what you would get if you used arcane power and arcane blast spamming at different timeframes.

Improvements

Talents

Arcane

[Arcane Focus] increases the chance to hit by 1/2/3% and reduces the mana cost of Arcane spells by 1/2/3%.

[Arcane Concentration] gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damaging spell by 100%.

[Focus Magic] increases the target's chance to critically hit with all spells by 3%. When the target critically hits the caster's chance to critically hit with spells is increased by 3% for 10 sec. Cannot be cast on self.

[Presence of Mind] will, when activated, cause your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec to become an instant cast spell. Also required for Arcane Potency, Arcane Instability and Arcane Power (see below).

Frost

[Shatter] increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 17/34/50%.

[Frost Channeling] reduces the mana cost of all spells by 4/7/10% and the threat caused by your Frost spells by 4/7/10%.

[Winter's Chill] increases your chance to critically hit with Frostbolt by an additional 1/2/3% and gives your Frost damage spells a 33/66/100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

[Fingers of Frost] gives your Chill effects a 7/15% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which treats your next spells cast as if the target were Frozen (used together with Shatter, see above). Lasts 15 sec.

Tips and tactics

The mana cost increase will run you out of mana VERY quickly. While debuffless Arcane Blast is fairly efficient in terms of DPM, a single-debuff stack will already triple the mana cost for a very disproportionate DPM imbalance. Spamming this spell is very inefficient and virtually unsustainable even in the presence of such elements as Innervate and Replenishment.

As of patch 3.0.8, Arcane Blast has been reworked. The debuff it applies increases the damage of the next arcane damage spell you cast. Arcane Blast will add another stack, while all others will consume the effect. This makes Arcane Blast a good way for arcane mages to power up their spells and increase their damage.

An arcane mage's main nuke, therefore, should consist of alternating Arcane Blast with Arcane Barrage. This way the blast provides efficient damage while the barrage consumes and receives bonus damage from the power-up.

For shorter fights you might decide to build more than one stack of power before releasing it with another arcane spell. However, for longer fights this probably won't be a very wise use of mana.

Also watch for Clearcasting. If this procs when you already have a stack of power, your next blast will get all of the extra damage and none of the extra cost.

Arcane Blast is like Scorch (and unlike Fireball, Frost Bolt, and Arcane Missiles) in that it doesn't have a projectile animation. This makes the mage a bit less obvious in PvP combat as Arcane Blast won't leave a brilliant pointer back to the caster. Also, it's pretty hard to keep the debuff going as you'll hardly have time to sit around spamming 2.5 second casts (luckily for you).

Patch changes

Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22): The buff from using this ability now stacks up to 4 times instead of 3, and each application increases mana cost by 175% instead of 200%. In addition, the duration of the buff has been reduced to 6 seconds.

Patch 3.1.0 (14-Apr-2009): Stacking effect is no longer considered a Magic effect and will not be dispelled. Formerly it was considered a harmful magical effect and would be dispelled by friendly casters, sometimes by accident, other times because of other magic debuffs.

Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): This ability has been significantly changed. Arcane Blast now increases the damage of the next Arcane spell by 15%. However, using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge itself. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of Arcane spells is increased by 15% and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 200%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 seconds or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.

/Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008): The debuff was changed from a cast time reduction to a pure damage increase, and the mana cost penalty was massively increased. Debuff duration changed from 8 to 3 seconds.

Patch 2.1.0 (22-May-2007): The Arcane Blast debuff can no longer be dispelled.

Patch 2.1.0 (22-May-2007): A data error was fixed that was causing Arcane Blast to generate more threat than intended.